Category: Postcards from the Road

One of our daughters and son-in-law moved overseas eight years ago. We tried for years to go see them. As teachers, they have regular breaks to travel. Our simple idea was to meet them somewhere, anywhere. But a worldwide pandemic got in the way, among other things. Plans were made, and cancelled, and made again and cancelled again. It happens. Finally, eight years later, everything fell into place.

They now live in the desert of Saudi Arabia, so they wanted to go somewhere wet and green for spring break. Where else but The Netherlands?

We spent a week in a small cottage in the country, a bit north of Amsterdam. Water everywhere. And windmills. The nearest town of Zaandijk has a train station, bakery, brewery, and couple of cafes, and was just a short bike ride away. A ride along dikes and levees past a dozen working windmills.

One evening we took the train back from Amsterdam. We walked from the station to the cottage, stopping for dinner in a small cafe. After dinner, we walked the rest of the way back in the moonlight. It was amazing, the windmills whooshing overhead like giant birds flapping in a starry sky. Flocks of geese and ducks in the canals and the polders cackled, adding to the surreal effect.

One morning while the others eased slowly out of bed, I rode by as the windmill crews were just opening up. Several of the mills earn their keep doing the same work they’ve done for hundreds of years. One is a working sawmill. At that early hour there were no crowds to contend with – I was the only visitor. Most of the crews are older men who work the mill, and a few young apprentices have joined them. One of the old Dutch guys saw how interested I was and gave me a personal tour, explaining in detail how it all works (in fluent English), and the history of that particular mill.

This mill, Het Jong Schaap (“The Young Sheep”), had been in continuous operation for over 400 years, right up until WWII and the Nazi Occupation. Things became so desperate during the war that townspeople needed to dismantle the mill for firewood. But before they did, they documented in detail every piece they removed. Years after the war those plans were found. Funds were raised and the mill rebuilt exactly as it was, along with many others along the Zaans River.

Inside the mill, I was immediately struck by the sound – it’s like being inside an enormous breathing animal. The pace of respiration rises and falls with natural rhythm of the wind. From slow and steady, like the beast is sleeping, to rapid and muscular.

The canvas on the vanes are trimmed like sails to match the strength of the wind, and the whole head is turned with a crank to follow the wind direction as well, just like a sailing ship. In fact, as he was explaining how the gears work, he suddenly stopped short and made a quick adjustment to take advantage of a gust, which he heard instinctively – just like we do in our small wooden boats. “Just the same, it’s the same principle,” he said.

After the sound, there’s smell of fresh sawdust, and everywhere the rich golden glow of sunlight on wood. No reek of petroleum or exhaust, no screech and whine of industrial motors. Just heaving and sighing.

The whole apparatus is built like a big clock inside, and every step of the process is automated and facilitated by the power of the wind harnessed by the vanes. A windlass winds a hawser that hauls logs from the river up the ramp and into the mill, then lifts them onto a carriage where the log is dogged in place. Then another gear, ticking like a slow second hand watch gear, moves the log and carriage steadily into the blades as they pump up and down, the blades driven by a crank shaft turned in the attic by the wind.

The blades are spaced with wooden blocks measured down to the millimeter. Using a combination of blades and spacers, they can cut thin planks and thick timbers from the same log in a single pass. With good wind, they can cut three logs at once, running all three saws side by side.

My guide, knowing I was a sailor, told me they recently had a commission to make a new mast for a large sailing ship. Cut eight sided and tapered. They used a single log 40 feet long, floated down rivers and canals from the Black Forest in Germany. There are small doors at the back of the mill just for this purpose – opened to let oversized pieces extend out through the walls.

Some video of the mill, with that amazing sound: